Insights

The European Patent Office (EPO) published in its Official Journal on 30 October a decision of the President (OJ EPO 2026, A50, dated 21 October) and an accompanying notice (A51) implementing amended Rule 134 EPC. They set out when EPO electronic communication or payment services count as unavailable, how periods are then extended, and how late acts caused by exceptional occurrences can be saved. The rules apply from 1 April 2027 to periods expiring on or after that date, replace the notice of 22 October 2020, and also apply to unitary patent proceedings.

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) updated its new patents service notice on 27 October: from 9 November, patents must be renewed through an IP account rather than the current renewal page on the UK government website, while trade mark and registered design renewals stay as they are. Web Filing, the legacy system due to close on 8 November, will stay open for now and is expected to retire in early December, with the exact date to be confirmed. On 29 October UKIPO added a submission receipt and other features to the new service and published its September filing statistics.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on 29 October reversed a discovery order in Motorola v Advanced Standard Communication (ASC), No. 26-10747. Granted under 28 U.S.C. § 1782, the order required ASC to hand over the unredacted agreement under which it bought patents from ZTE, with exhibits, for Motorola's FRAND defence at the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and in Germany.

Background

ASC bought a bundle of telecoms patents from ZTE on 31 December 2022.

Brazil's National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) announced at 13:50 local time on 29 October that some of its electronic services were temporarily unavailable and that its technical team was working to restore them. Citing article 6 of Portaria INPI/PR No. 049 of 3 December 2021, under which deadlines falling due on a day when a technical outage of more than 60 continuous minutes is confirmed are automatically restored, INPI stated that deadlines due on 29 October will be restored automatically.

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) updated its Industrial Design Office Practice Manual on 29 October and introduced a new practice with immediate effect: for Hague applications designating Canada, correspondence submitted by the representative recorded in the international registration will be treated as sufficient notice that this representative is appointed as agent before CIPO, provided it gives the representative's name and postal address as recorded on the International Register.

The previous practice

Until now, appointing a representative in an international application took effect only before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

WIPO's Global IP Assignment Platform (GIPAP) is now in its pilot phase. The aim is one guided process for filing assignment recordals with several IP offices (news). The pilot runs from the third quarter of 2026 to the third quarter of 2027, and each office still decides under its own law whether to record a transfer. So for now, if you move a trademark portfolio to another group company, sell a regional business or buy a brand, each mark still has to be transferred through the route it was registered by. This article explains how Madrid assignments differ from national ones, and the rules in China, the EU and the US that most often cause trouble. It is general information, not advice on a specific case.